


Your Role, Your Gift

by StalwartNavigator (Fallwater023)



Series: Dragonslain [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Soldiers, Dark, Everybody Lives, Gen, Gore, Head Injury, Holidays, Humor, Khuzdul, Kidnapping, Next Generation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Psychological Trauma, Rescue, Royalty, Stabbing, Storytelling, Well - Freeform, holidays gone wrong, ish, kids fight back, the villains die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallwater023/pseuds/StalwartNavigator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thain is tired of stories. He wants to find the truth. </p><p>Sometimes the truth finds you first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Role, Your Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Oh wow, the plot bunnies bit me hard with this one. 
> 
> WARNING WARNING: Mentions of child slavery, kids maiming and killing people. Gore. I felt a bit woozy writing some (very brief) portions of this. 
> 
> Thain is the human equivalent of about twelve. Fain is about six, Linna is nearly two.

Every year, the story is told Under the Mountain. Children dress up as the characters (some, like Bard the Bowman, are long dead, while others are alive and embarrassed at all the fuss) and sit at their elders’ feet to hear about the mighty fire-drake, Smaug. 

This is the one day of the year that the elders sing the song of their exile and tell their grandchildren how the pines cracked in the heat of Smaug’s passing. How to smell him was to know that all thinking creatures - even dwarves - were animals, and could die animal deaths. 

“The size of him!” booms one, “The span of his wings, the length of the great hall. Teeth like swords, claws like spears!”

“Think furnace with wings!” Chirps another to his audience. 

They sit raptly and hear of the panicked flight from Erebor, when King Thorin was just a prince with his father and grandfather between him and the throne. How in their terror the most absurd things were saved - a half-done hoop of sewing, a jeweler’s hammer, a book of children’s tales - and the wealth of generations was lost. They hear of the long foot journey across the Salt Marshes, the coldness of their reception in the Iron Hills (the dwarves who had come from those hills a generation ago and were now proud Ereboreans looked shifty and downcast at that part). They hear the bloody horror of Azanulbizar, Thror’s madness and Thrain’s grief, and the shield that gave Thorin his epithet and earned him the respect of his men. 

They hear how that same prince went forth into the towns of Men and labored for his people - often cheated, often hungry so that his sister and young nephews could eat - and he never forgave. And he never forgot. 

Tharkun is a shaky character in these stories. Sometimes a villain, who wanted Thorin to reclaim the mountain so he himself could retrieve treasure, or an artifact of great power. Sometimes the hero who singlehandedly saved the Company on their journey, too many times to count. But the children hear of his bringing the map, and leading the Company to their Lucky Number fourteen. 

“He was not meant to be a dragonslayer, but a humble burglar,” said the grandmothers and grandfathers, “A creature the dragon had never smelled before, not man nor elf nor dwarf, but a hobbit of the distant Shire. Peaceful creatures, and not much given to far wandering.” 

Bilbo Baggins was different, the children learn, son of a wandering Tookish woman and a stout-hearted Baggins lad. Bilbo came with the Company, for he was hungry for adventure. 

Accounts of the journey itself vary widely. Some say they went north, through the very halls of Gundabad, and slew many an orcish patrol on their way. Some say they swung south through Rohan and traded their ponies with the Horse Lords of the great plains for noble steeds that carried them around the Mirkwood and over the River Running, up to the end of the Long Lake. Others say that the Company flew the whole way on the great Eagles of Manwe, summoned by Tharkun. But most agree that their journey was mostly a straight shot east, through the Misty Mountains and the fearsome realm of Mirkwood. 

The perils they came upon are also confused. All the dwarves agree that the treacherous elves of Mirkwood took the Company prisoner in battle and imprisoned them for a time, and only the wits of Bilbo and the honor of Thorin won them free. There is also general agreement that trolls were involved, and giant spiders, and all manner of foul creatures. One old great-uncle insists that wargs and goblins kidnapped Bilbo from his homely little Shire house, and of gratitude for his rescue at the Company’s hands, he swore his service as their Lucky Number Burglar. 

Nowhere are accounts so confused, though, as the slaying of Smaug the Terrible. The Company sought the aid of Bard the Bowman, who used a black arrow handed down from his forefather to slay the beast; Thorin himself dealt the death blow to the rampaging beast; Smaug woke in a rage and it took the whole Company to slay him with the equipment of the long-cold forges; Beorn came with them from the mountain hills and did battle with the dragon as a giant bear; Smaug was on death’s door of old age when Bilbo came and gave him the mercy of a sword in the eye. 

Thain, son of Fili, adopted son of Thorin Oakenshield, Prince Under the Mountain and heir to the Throne of Erebor, frowned. “They can’t all be true,” he said with the reason and logic of his favorite Uncle. 

“Why not?” Prince Fain pouted a little. He liked the stories, all of them, even the boring one with the eagles that only took an hour to tell. Fain swung his wooden mattock, pasted-on mustache and paper hat wobbling. 

“Because they can’t have slain Azog at Rivendell _and_ Gundabad _and_ Mount Doom _and_ Erebor. You can’t slay someone _five times._ That’s just sloppy. Linna, back me up here.” 

Princess Linna looked up at him and giggled. Her skullcap, carefully painted over with tattoos, slipped off; she gummed it and looked back and forth between her brothers. 

“Well, _you’re_ no help,” Thain grumbled. He found a nice rock to sit and brood, out of the way of Linna’s slobber and Fain’s little hammer blows. Dressing up was no fun once your beard started getting thick enough to itch under pasted-on wool, and he was getting too old to really have fun at the kid’s games. But when his father and the rest of the Company got together to remember the quest, they sent him out with the other kids to play, like he was a baby himself and couldn’t handle a little grown-up conversation. Sure, he’d thought they were boring when he was little, but that was a whole _two years_ ago! He was a tween now, Uncle Bilbo kept saying, and ought to have more responsibility. It wouldn’t be fair if that just meant extra chores and training and no extra grown-up fun to go with it. 

And so what if he hadn’t stopped roughhousing with Uncle Kili and listening to Uncle Bilbo’s bedtime stories? _Adad_ and _Grandpa Thorin_ roughhoused with Uncle Kili all the time, and there wasn’t a dwarf in the Company who wouldn’t sit on the rug at Uncle Bilbo’s feet and listen when he told stories. 

So it wasn’t fair, and he was resolved to go tell Uncle Bilbo this (Uncle Kili would just laugh. Uncle Kili never stopped laughing. _Adad_ would sigh and nod and do nothing, and Grandpa Thorin would just give him a gentle scowl and a pat on the head). And if Uncle Bilbo wouldn’t listen, well, he’d just run off and take a sword-name like Iron-Reaver Ingmar or Kinseeker Vanna. He’d go and have adventures and be a hero, and then they’d all have to treat him like a grown-up and beg him to come back. 

And then it occurred to him that he hadn’t heard Linna’s squeals in awhile, or Fain’s war cries. 

Time seemed to slow down. He’d heard Uncle Bilbo describe it at the scary parts of his stories, but he didn’t think it actually happened. And it did. 

He turned. 

The cave. 

It was empty. 

No. 

“Hhh-,” Thain was about to scream, but he thought better of it and clapped both his hands over his own mouth. Behind his wide wide eyes, his mind was clicking along faster than the River Running (oh Mahal the river what if they wander in and - ). If it was a game and they were hiding, his scream would only encourage them to stay put. If it wasn’t a game - if there were child thieves in Erebor like his Uncles and _Adad_ and Grandpa wouldn’t even joke about, then, then screaming would let them know that they’d missed one. 

Half of him, the half that was his father and quests and adventure stories and raiding games with Uncle Dwalin, told him to go and find his sister and brother all by himself and be a hero. Surely Uncle Bilbo would let him do fun grown-up things if he was a hero. 

The half that was his mother and sensibility and reality and hard simple fact said no. Go find a grownup you trust. An Uncle, or _Adad_ or _Amad_ or Grandma Dis or Grandpa Thorin. Tell them where you were, when you last saw them. That’s the grown-up thing to do. 

The hesitation was his doom. If he had run off to do either, the child thief sneaking up behind him wouldn’t have got him in the head with a mattock. 

He woke up knowing this, and it pissed him off. Thain took a moment to thrash about in rage. He could move, mostly, but his ankles and wrists were tied so he couldn’t run or hit somebody. That scared him. The cave was dark, but he was of the royal line of Durin, and that meant more than fancy clothes and a shiny crown. He opened his eyes, and very carefully opened them again. 

The cave glimmered softly, too soft to be hidden with runes. That might be a good sign or a bad sign. Thorin and Uncle Kili and _Adad_ and Grandma Dis would be looking for them with their own second eyes, and a rune-hidden cave would have drawn their attention like moths to a flame. But this way the rest of the Uncles who would look for them by foot would have an easier time of spotting the right door and not getting turned around. 

Would they even be looking? It was Questing Day, and the children of Erebor often ran wild through her halls, playing Dragonhunter and Orcslayer. It could be hours before the princes and princess were missed. 

Hours could be too long. 

There were no adults in the cave, just a couple lumpy shapes on the ground. Maybe other kids. His blood went colder at the thought. Questing Day was a perfect opportunity for child thieves; nobody’s parents would be looking for them until dinner. Even bedtimes were relaxed for the holiday. And if kids had arranged to sleep over at friends’ or relatives’ houses, they might not be missed until tomorrow morning. 

One of the lumps was shaking a little. 

“Hsst!” Thain whispered, “Hey!” The lump squirmed around, and the prince could make out a head turned to face him in the dark. A low whimpering moan hung in the air. It _was_ a kid, like him. A boy, maybe his age or a bit younger. Hard to tell. 

“Shh, they’ll hear,” Thain whispered again, glancing around. His second eyes grew stronger the longer he used them, and he could make out the rough shape of a closed door. “What’s your name?”

The boy sniveled a bit and got a grip. “Gansey. Gansey - ,” hiccup, “ - Weft. At your - ,” gulp, “ - service.” 

That last word was a little stronger. Thain approved. “Thain, at yours. Did they hit you, too?” 

“Yeah, they - it was dark, I was playing Dragonhunter with my Took cousins and I got lost. Then I turned around and they were there.” 

Took cousins. Of course, Gansey Weft wasn’t a dwarvish name. This kid - faunt - was probably a lot younger than he looked, then. “Did you see them? Hear their voices?” 

“It was dark,” Gansey sobbed, then got ahold of himself, “I, one of them said something? It sounded like a man, an old man but not a gaffer. They were talking Khuzdul.” 

Of course. Thain resisted the urge to bang his head against the ground. Of _course_ their captors would let something slip in Khuzdul around the one kid who couldn’t understand them. “Right, were you with anyone else? They - ,” he gulped himself, because panic made his voice stick, “ - they took my little brother, and my baby sister. She’s just twelve.” 

He could practically hear Gansey’s double-take, and then his mental abacus clicking down. “Oh. Oh bother and confusticate and - oh boy.” 

That last was small, and whimpered, and Thain felt like whimpering right along because he could hear heavy footsteps approaching just as well as Gansey could. 

He just remembered to close all his eyes when the door cracked open and the dim light of torches beat against his eyes. If his second eyes had been open they would have been blinded. When he was sure his inner eyelids were closed, he dared to crack open his outer ones. 

Two shapes lumbered through the doorway; one of them had a slight limp, or so he thought until it dumped another shape on the ground. It protested in a high whimper. Thain could feel Gansey, pressed up against him, give a full-body twitch of recognition. 

_“Tha’s the las’ of’em,”_ the limper grumbled to the other in Khuzdul. _“You wan’ I should start haulin’ down t’th’river?”_

_“Naw, y’idjit,”_ and this must have been the one Gansey heard, the older man. His accent was so thick Thain could barely make it out. _“They’m look’n fer th’king-brats. Lemme go’n fix th’boot, yew wait’n keep’m husht.”_ Thain tried to puzzle out why the child thieves needed a boot, then thought a bit more about the accent and figured he meant a _boat_. The old man kicked open the door and stumped out of the hidden cave. Thain strained his ears; before the door slammed shut, he could just barely hear the murmur of the River Running. 

_They’re taking us away._

The thought was clear as the Arkenstone sealed away in his Grandpa’s deepest vault, and just as terrifying. He’d grown up hearing stories of its madness. The visit he and _Adad_ and Grandpa had paid it when he was small had scared him very much. 

This was the same sinking fear. Like the Arkenstone, the child thieves would take him very far away from everyone he loved. Like the Arkenstone, they would change him. He heard stories from his scarier Uncles and from his tutors about how stolen children came back different, mean and angry and sad and scared. How they didn’t recognize their families, or their own names. 

The child thief walked to and fro between the lumps with a lamp, checking if the kids were still sleeping. Occasionally he would giggle. The sound of it made Thain sick like the Arkenstone made him sick. 

He never ever wanted to stop being Thain. Even if it meant being treated like a baby forever. He never ever wanted to lose his Uncles and Grandpa and Grandma, their loud voices and rough laughter and gentle hands. Even if it meant he could never be a hero. And more than that, he never ever wanted to lose Fain and Linna. Fain who followed him like a lost warg-puppy would follow a Sackville-Baggins girl; Linna who wailed if he left for lessons without giving her a warm hug and a baby-gentle forehead touch. 

Even if it meant being lost himself. He _would_ find his sister and brother, and he would make them safe. 

His father welled up in him, his _Adad_ who was hero and fearless warrior and big brother to the bone. 

Thain sank his teeth into the child thief’s leg. The dwarf swore, loudly and long, mostly in Khuzdul. He kicked the boy hard in the gut. Thain slid and skidded, fetching up against the rough-hewn rock of the far wall. He struggled feebly to get up as the dwarf strode towards him. 

“Y’li’l brat, bastard, I’mma - !”

And the dwarf swore again, because Gansey had struggled to his feet while his back was turned and launched his whole body against his back. The lamp fell, broke, and sputtered into darkness on the damp stone. 

“Gimme back Bristy!” the faunt was yelling, whatever that meant. “Bristy!” He was kicking now too, thumping the man’s knees and ankles with his tethered feet. Thain stomped out the last of the wick and opened up all of his eyes. Gansey was flailing, hitting the child thief more or less accurately. Thain heard a crunch and a bellow that made him wince; Gansey had nailed their thief’s wrist by pure luck, shattering one or more of the fragile bones. He kept yelling “Bristy! Bristy!” and kicking away. 

Thain sat by the shards of the lamp, picked up a big piece of glass, and started awkwardly sawing at the rope around his wrists. He slipped once or twice. The glass was slick with blood when he finally snapped the last of the cord, but he didn’t really feel the sting of the cuts. The child thief was still yelling and some of the other kids were starting to stir and whimper and wail. The River Running was loud, but the old man would hear them if they were louder. 

Thain fumbled with the knots around his ankles, and then he was free with a passable weapon in his hand and an enemy to take out. 

_Go for the knees,_ Uncle Dwalin whispered in his memory, _knees and ankles, cut the cords that Mahal strung through their joints. Do whatever you need to be safe._

It would be easier if he wasn’t struggling. Moving like he was in a dream, Thain kicked the stranger’s head once, twice, and knelt down to cut at his ankles. It was tricky through his boots, and the stranger moaned but didn’t wake up. Thain felt the tendon come apart under his hands, the taut muscles going horribly limp under his hands. 

Then he gripped Gansey, gentle, and undid the ropes around him. “Bristy!” the boy gasped one last time, hustling over to the dropped lump without so much as a thank-you. 

“Gansey?” The lump whimpered, and Thain could let it go; this was Gansey’s sister, a little fauntling girl with a crumpled grassflower clinging to her hair. Gansey was untying her, and she shakily helped them untie the others. Some were barely more than babies, and clung to older siblings or each other, sniffling. 

“Fain!” He yelped when he found his little brother. But something was wrong. Fain wouldn’t wake up, no matter how he shook him. A familiar whimper rose from the crook of his brother’s body, one he would know even in a tiny cave filled with the whimpers of lost children. 

“Thay?” Linna gaped up at him, then reached out with a rope-burned hand and touched Fain’s face gently. “Fay?” 

“O Linn,” He whispered, swinging her up into his arms. He had to pitch all his weight under her to carry her like this anymore, but he didn’t mind. “Linna girl, it’s okay. Thain’s here. Big bro will look after you.” 

Thain tried shaking Fain again, then decided to leave him. He was the oldest, but some of the kids here were nearly his age; he recognized one from staff practice and set him to watch over Fain and the couple of others who wouldn’t wake. 

Gansey and Bristy were the only hobbits. They had each other well in hand; Bristy was talking to the weepers, getting them to nod and smile and swallow down their sobs, while Gansey had proven he had some good iron in him. There were about twenty kids total, more than Thain had ever seen in any one place at one time. Children were still precious Under the Mountain. Only five of them were a useful age, not counting the faunts. Linna was the only toddler. The rest were in their late twenties and early thirties, just old enough to carry themselves and keep quiet if they had to. A bit younger than Fain, but not bad. 

One of the useful ones was guarding Fain. The rest were looking to him. 

“Everybody. My name is Thain. We need to keep quiet, there’s another child thief outside. He’s a bit older but not very old. From what I’ve heard and seen, we’re down by the River Running; we need to get away, all of us, before he comes back to bring us to his boat.” Thain pointed at two of the usefuller ones, the ones he had seen at staff practice and bow practice. “You, you,” 

“Perin, sir,” 

“Penn, sir,” They did look like brothers. It was weird to be called sir. 

“Perin, Penn, you take the rear. We all need to move in a group. You little kids, everybody hold hands and make a tunnel snake. Don’t none of you let go of the snake, okay? You,” he pointed at another of the useful ones. “Have you had any weapons training?” 

The kid straightened up. “Makk sir, and no sir, my da’s a smith. I help him in the forge.” He looked pretty strong. 

“Can you carry a kid or two?”

Makk grinned. “I have twin brothers, sir.” 

Thain touched foreheads with his sister and handed her to Makk. “This is Linna. Bristy!” 

“Yes sir?” It was really weird that everybody was calling him sir. Hobbits especially didn’t really do the kings-and-titles thing, Uncle Bilbo always said. 

“Which one of the little kids is the smallest? Or the weakest?” 

Bristy bit her lip. “Nayen is smaller, but Naysa hurt her leg when they took her.” Thain nodded. 

“Find Naysa and walk her over to Makk. You,” he pointed at the last useful kid. 

“Guwin, sir, I can run faster’n anybody!” 

Thain chuckled at the enthusiasm, putting both hands on the kid’s shoulders. “When we go, we need to go quick. You run ahead of us, and no matter _what_ you hear,” he shook the kid a little bit to make the point stick, “Don’t look back. Don’t slow down. Tell every grownup you see that there are child thieves Under the Mountain, down by the River Running. Find the guardhouse, you know where it is? Rouse the guard. Show them your wrists if they think it’s just a Questing Day game.” 

He helped the kids line up, each clinging to the hand of another kid. Makk was hefting Linna in his arms, Naysa clinging to his back with a rope hastily lashed on around her waist. Perin and Pern had found sticks somewhere and clutched them in Opening Stance, standing at the end of the line. Thain clapped their shoulders, gave them a few encouraging words, then went over to Gansey and Bristy. 

“You two, I want on either side of the line. Keep the kids together, keep them moving. No matter what happens.” He rummaged around the child thief’s belt, coming up with a pair of daggers. One he gave to Gansey, the other he kept, and tied the belt around the thief’s squishy wrists. Gansey clutched the dagger. Bristy looked annoyed. 

Everything was almost ready - and the door busted open again. 

Thain isn’t sure what happened next. His second eyes had never been open in torchlight before, and the agony that burned through his head was completely new to him. He dropped his dagger, clutched at his face, rolled on the floor in agony. He screamed. He cried. He begged. 

It wasn’t his finest moment. 

The child thief kicked him, and that was the _second_ time today that he heard something go _crunch_ in his chest. The man was snarling, and raging, and the kids were screaming, and - 

Thain had never heard anyone gurgle like that before. But he knew instantly and down to his bones what it meant. He breathed hard a couple times, closed all his eyelids, then opened the outer ones. 

Bristy was on top of the slumped-over child thief, long dagger buried up to the hilt in his back. The thief had spurted on her, she was speckled with red and breathing in harsh pants, Thain could see her eyes white all the way round - 

Gansey gently edged up next to her, put a hand on her shoulder. Bristy pulled out the knife, lowered it by her side. Thain couldn’t read her face when she turned to look at him. 

And then there were voices, in that weird Khuzdul accent. 

_Oh Mahal, mercy_

Of _course_ there were more child thieves. 

Thain stood, clapped hands on Bristy’s shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Can you keep fighting?” He asked, solemn as Uncle Dwalin always said when he was battered and bruised at the end of a sparring match. 

She looked at him. She breathed. She wiped the blood out of her eyebrows. She nodded. 

“Good.” He couldn’t hug her, because she would cling or maybe stab him, and they couldn’t waste any time. Thain resolved to hug her when they were all safe. 

That hike was the hardest of his life. He’d played in the tunnels since he was a boy, growing up close to the stone as his grandfather and great-grandfather before him. But it was one thing to frolic and play and come running home after an hour. This endless trek, terrified and silent with aching ribs and bleeding hands and twenty-two souls to worry about was another thing entirely. Every clatter of stone on stone was their enemies pursuing them. Every thud was a little one collapsing into a faint that they would have to carry or leave. 

All the while he prayed that the thieves wouldn’t cut their losses and run with the kids who stayed behind - the one to guard the four who wouldn’t wake up, and Fain. 

_Don’t look back,_ Grandpa Thorin whispered in his memory, _Sometimes looking back and thinking back are the same. Don’t. Move forward. Live. Grow. Come back at the head of an army._

Guwin had gone on ahead. He would go to the guards, first thing. Thain would make the littles safe, and he would find Uncle Dwalin and Uncle Dain and Uncle Kili and _Adad_ , and everything would be okay. 

_“Oi!”_ shouted a strange voice behind them, and Thain bellowed “RUN!” 

Thank Mahal, they only had a few hundred more feet to go. Every step took them closer. Behind him he heard Pern and Perin shout “HOLD!” in the timbre of the Ereborean Guard, and he didn’t have to look back to know that they were shoulder to shoulder in the tunnel in opening position, ready to dance through the Tunneler’s Form that would strike back a pursuer in a narrow space. 

It wasn’t designed for more than one pursuer. That was for later training, for actual guard recruits and not kids who learned the staff to make use of their fidgets. Thain gave them, grimly, about two minutes before the child thieves overwhelmed them. 

In two minutes, they could be seventy feet further down the tunnel. It might be enough. 

Maybe. 

Sure enough, he heard the twins cry out and fall silent, and the yells of the thieves grow louder. Louder. Closer - 

_“MAKE WAY!”_

He had heard that voice many times, in the streets and the deeps of Erebor. It was a command every dwarven child was taught to obey from their earliest days. 

Thain and the kids flattened themselves to the tunnel wall and a full phalanx of the Ereborean Guard thundered past. 

They were not arrayed in brightest armor; just their regular boiled-leather duty uniforms, strong enough to turn the knives and darts of child thieves. They carried no bright banner and were not led by a king helmed in gold. But Thain felt the same rush of relief and pride and glory he felt when Uncle Bilbo described the hammer of the Iron Hills guard and the Mirkwood soldiers turning together on the Orcish hordes. 

A second phalanx followed, but rather than charge on into the fray they turned to the children. One stepped forward and saluted.

“Prince Thain,”

“Aye?” Thain answered, warily. 

“Lieutenant Arin, at your service. Let’s get you home.” 

Thain looked the lieutenant up and down, lingering on his official badge, and nodded cautiously. Half the phalanx stepped forward, each picking up a child from the line; one of them relieved Makk of Naysa, but Thain claimed Linna before turning to the lieutenant, “My brother and five other children are still in the cave where we were held, down by the River Running; they wouldn’t wake up and we left one kid with a knife to guard them.” 

The lieutenant nodded solemnly, and hurried them along the tunnel towards Erebor proper; he told the third phalanx behind them that more children were still captive. 

Nothing ever seemed so sweet to Thain as the dim light of the city’s torches, or so good as the cries and smiles of parents reunited with their children. Mothers and fathers crowded up to shake his free hand, as though he were somebody special besides being a prince and heir to the Throne of Erebor. 

That all paled to the face of his _Adad_ and _Amad_ , who scooped him and Linna up in their arms like they were both infants again. 

“Oh _akhunith_ ,” _Adad_ murmured, gasping and clinging to him, “My boy.” 

It was all a bit embarrassingly mushy, but Thain was a little disappointed when it was over and _Adad_ set him down on the ground. 

Before he could ask, Thain blurted out, “Fain’s still down in the tunnels, he - he wouldn’t wake up. I - ,” And he couldn’t breathe, suddenly, and his face was wet, he could taste snot sour in his mouth. “I, _Amad_...”

“Oh son,” _Amad_ handed Linna over to _Adad_ and knelt to hug him. He clung, and it all came wailing out of him at once. 

Here he was, and he’d finally done something that he guessed was sort of hero-like, and he was a prince of Erebor, the prince, second in line for the throne and he couldn’t. Stop. Sobbing. 

But there was something important to do, and he looked around. There was a hobbit family, mother and father and two crying children, one of them rather messier than the other. 

He pushed out of his _Amad’s_ arms, and limped over. 

In the sight of all Erebor, Under the halls of his ancestors, Thain son of Fili adopted son of Thorin Oakenshield, Prince Under the Mountain and heir to the throne of Erebor, gave a blood-soaked hobbit girl a hug. 

XXX

When all the dust settled, Fain was alright. He’d spent a couple scary nights under the care of old Uncle Oin who was _never going to die_ because he was so old and smart and death just wasn’t gonna show up for him. 

But Thain was sure that death was going to show up for Fain, and he sat at the end of his brother’s bed with a knife waiting for the shadow to come in so he could kill it. He’d seen Bristy kill a child thief, he’d crippled the other one, he’d been training extra hard with Uncle Dwalin. He could probably kill death, he figured, if it was for his baby brother. 

But death didn’t come, and Fain got better. One day he was opening his eyes and muttering, and the next he was sitting up and drinking a little bit of soup. And before Thain really knew it, Fain was back up and running around after him. 

Like Uncle Bifur, he had some trouble sometimes with speaking. But his memories were all there, right up to the knock he’d gotten on the head. He still remembered how to strap on his boots and how to fasten his belt buckle. He still remembered the runes he’d been working on with Uncle Ori the day before Questing Day. He got scared easily, but so did Linna. 

Thain wasn’t scared. He was angry. Angry as the dragon in the stories where he woke, angry as Bilbo striking the death blow in stories where the dragon slept. 

He had been stupid, and careless, and angry, and it had nearly gotten him and his sister and brother killed. 

He was angry about being angry. 

Gansey and Bristy lived in the Upper Reaches; he went up there to play, whenever _Amad_ and Grandma Dis would let him out of the royal chambers. They lived in a little round tunnel-house in a grass-garden, and he ate grass-seed stew rich and nutty, and plaited the stems into grassflowers with Bristy and grass-swords with Gansey, and he shredded the leaves for Missus Lenna to spin and weave into soft cloth. 

Bristy understood about the angry thing. She was angry a lot too, she said, and sometimes had dreams where she didn’t stop the child thief and the thief killed Thain, or she couldn’t stop killing the child thief and she turned and killed Gansey and Thain when they tried to calm her down. She shook a lot, and Thain had to give her hugs to keep her from shaking. 

Their shaky hands shredded a lot of grassflowers, but they kept trying and steadying each other. 

It was easier to relearn gentleness with a friend.

XXX

So when Thain finally plucked up his courage to ask Uncle Bilbo about the story, it was with Gansey and Bristy and Fain and Linna and Perin and Pern and Makk and Guwin beside him. 

“Oh,” Uncle Bilbo said, “I haven’t told you already?”

Thain just stared at him. 

“Ah, right then, sit down all of you, and I’ll tell you how King Thorin and his Company slew the Dragon.”

**Author's Note:**

> "All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town." - Leo Tolstoy
> 
> Thain, Fain, and Linna are the children of Fili and Sanna, a minor character briefly mentioned in _Culturally Explicit_. 
> 
> Oh, the second eyes thing. My head canon holds that due to royal overbreeding and some distant history of inbreeding, the dwarves of Durin's line have extremely light-sensitive eyes and multiple eyelids. With their second eyelids closed, they can stand daylight; without them, they can see in near complete darkness. More useful than extra thumbs or hemophilia any day. It doesn't breed true to all Durin dwarves - Dwalin doesn't have them, for example - but nearly all of the royal family has them.


End file.
